Monday, January 7th 2019

Cooler Master Unclutters the PSU PCB with XG Series

by
btarunr
 Discuss (15 Comments)
Cooler Master this CES unveiled the XG-series Gold Advanced power-supply series. The company has re-imagined the various components that go into building a standards-compliant modern PC power-supply that's also feature rich in efficiency and protections. The XG series PCB gets rid of many of the components PSU designers would add as redundancies to compensate for lower quality, and switch to fewer but higher quality components. The company has also incorporated DC-to-DC switching to get rid of separate switching stages for lower voltage domains such as +5V and 3.3V. The new XG-series PSU PCB also features fewer but higher capacity wiring. The biggest dividend would be improved airflow within the PSU, which could be traded in for lower fan speeds and lower noise. Pictured below is a 750-Watt model compared to the PCB from one of Cooler Master's older generation 750 W 80 Plus Gold-level PSUs. Harsh steel alloy surfaces make way for lightweight acrylic panels held by steel frames. The company will launch this sometime in May.

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15 Comments on Cooler Master Unclutters the PSU PCB with XG Series

#1
Argyr
holy cow... looking at the three pics.. i might consider getting a CM psu next time. :respect:
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#3
Tardian
I like where they are going with this design. I hope they make the smaller PSUs only semi-modular (like CX450M) as these are better for builds in small cases.
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#4
R-T-B
Looks similar to the Seasonic Prime in terms of how orderly it is...
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#5
ZoneDymo
can we move on from the 80+ standard to a 90+ standard pls?
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#6
Mayclore
That cap on the XG is an absolute unit.
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#7
Blueberries
Looks nice but it's a pretty niche market. If you're building a serviceable machine for another user you probably don't want to leave the PSU shroud open where somebody who doesn't know what their doing could kill themselves.

Most of Corsair's PSUs are good build quality (The AX1600i is the best standard ATX PSU on the market that I'm aware of). From the looks of it I believe this is a Superflower design and not a Flex design, build quality looks great though.
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#8
CheapMeat
I just really like that PSUs are continuely being worked on in unique or interesting, non-predictable ways. Heck, I even want to use SFX PSUs on ATX/EATX builds. More streamlined, less cluttered I think its a good direction.

Tangent but I've always wondered why they didn't put much bigger caps or supercaps on a PSU to have higher hold up times, almost like a pseudo-UPS just for 5 seconds or so for a graceful shutdown (RAM, caches, etc to not get errors, etc).
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#9
steen
CheapMeatTangent but I've always wondered why they didn't put much bigger caps or supercaps on a PSU to have higher hold up times, almost like a pseudo-UPS just for 5 seconds or so for a graceful shutdown (RAM, caches, etc to not get errors, etc).
Large can size, high bulk capacitance, low ESR 105C 400V+ electrolytics are $$ even for an ODM. Quality, adequately sized/specced primary caps affect DC output substantially.
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#10
CheapMeat
That's true it might cost more but often times they already put large caps on the boards or have space for them but not include it (visible placement area with contacts). I really doubt adding one more large cap would change the price that significantly for higher-end models, especially platinum and titanium, which is where I'd want that. I don't ever buy bronze, gold, etc and those wouldn't have better features anyway. Hold up times are measured in milliseconds. I doubt getting the hold up time to one actual second would be difficult or expensive. Just nobody asks for it or has cared enough to do it, especially because most PSUs have not been "smart" connected before. Most have been "dumb". Many, like from Corsair and CoolerMaster have USB connections which, among others thing already done, would allow it to talk to the OS to perform said graceful shutdown. Unless you think I do mean an actual UPS.

img.purch.com/r/711x457/aHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmJlc3RvZm1pY3JvLmNvbS9OL0QvNzA5NzUzL29yaWdpbmFsL1Jlc3VsdC0xMC0yOV9Ib2xkLVVwX1RpbWVfQ29tcGFyaXNvbi5wbmc=
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#11
newtekie1
Semi-Retired Folder
ZoneDymocan we move on from the 80+ standard to a 90+ standard pls?
80+ Platinum and 80+ Titanium are 90%+ efficient.
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#12
R-T-B
ZoneDymocan we move on from the 80+ standard to a 90+ standard pls?
80+ covers that. They need to make that more obvious though and renaming the standard would be a good start.
CheapMeatI doubt getting the hold up time to one actual second would be difficult or expensive.
Trust me, it would. There are a lot of milliseconds in a second.
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#13
hat
Enthusiast
R-T-BTrust me, it would. There are a lot of milliseconds in a second.
Yeah, you're not gonna power even a 60w system with mere capacitors for very long. You would need a ton of big expensive capacitors to allow a system to shut down, even if the shut down command was sent immediately upon detection of any power disturbance. A UPS would probably be cheaper. Those capacitors are only designed to react very quickly to slight disturbances that last for a very short time.
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#14
R-T-B
hatYeah, you're not gonna power even a 60w system with mere capacitors for very long. You would need a ton of big expensive capacitors to allow a system to shut down, even if the shut down command was sent immediately upon detection of any power disturbance. A UPS would probably be cheaper. Those capacitors are only designed to react very quickly to slight disturbances that last for a very short time.
Integrating a replacable short term leadacid and inverter would be way cheaper I think.
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#15
Assimilator
It's pretty obvious that the top side of the PCB on the new unit is much cleaner, but I think that the fact they've silkscreened it black helps to make it look even cleaner compared to the old design.

Either way, good to see some innovation in the PSU space; it feels that there hasn't been anything really revolutionary in this market for a while, even though Seasonic is continually pushing the envelope little by little. I still hope to see a transition from ATX12V to ATX24V to allow for lower amperages, though.
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